October 4, 2022

We are grateful for the outpouring of opposition to what the Walz administration is attempting to impose on our schools. The process is very likely being extended past the election, so that voters won’t take out their outrage at the ballot box. It’s too late for that. We see what state government is doing its best to impose on us!

The Professional Educators Licensing & Standards Board (PELSB) sent out an update stating that Administrative Law Judge Mortenson can order an extension of his 30-day deadline for his order. How long can his decision be extended? The timeline appears to have no clear deadline.

PELSB also stated that if Judge Mortenson disapproves of the Rule, the Chief Administrative Law Judge then “reviews the legality” of any changes that PELSB makes, a decision that may take up to an additional 10 days. [Board Members’ Handbook of Legal Issues (PDF), p. VI-2]

 

PELSB’s response to the hearing and post-hearing comments
Public criticism of the proposed teacher licensing rules was overwhelming.

After seven hours of Minnesotans commenting during the August 24 public hearing, with opposition to support 7:1, 455 comments — again, mostly in opposition — were uploaded through the Office of Administrative Hearing’s online portal during the public comment period. [American Experiment]

PELSB’s response to the opposition comments is to blow them all off as “misconceptions” and then manipulate the language to give false impressions. Politicians are known for this.

We are reminded of then-President Bill Clinton nearly 25 years ago deceitfully stating to the entire American TV audience, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss [Monica] Lewinsky.” He was lying, later explaining that oral sex is not sex, which it obviously is.

So it is with PELSB saying that requiring teachers to “affirm” gender identity does not require them to support it. Words have meaning in the real world. Manipulating the meaning of words puts us into an Alice-in-Wonderland world.

When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

PELSB claims that “The proposed standards focus on the ability of the teacher to consider a student’s beliefs and identities and affirm their right to practice said beliefs within the context of a public education setting.”

The truth is, however, that when teachers must speak gender identity pronouns, or when they are not allowed to use binary terms such as boy/girl, mother/father, etc. teachers are being forced to speak what they know to be false, and their constitutional right of freedom of speech and their freedom of conscience are violated.

Webster’s Dictionary, Affirm: to assert as valid or confirmed; to validate; to show or express a strong belief in or dedication to (something, such as an important idea); to state positively.

Requiring false pronoun usage is government forcing a radical and false cultural Marxist narrative on teachers and their students.

Dictating curriculum; Conflict with parental choice
PELSB insists that the Standards of Effective Practice are not dictating curriculum, and therefore they don’t conflict with parental choice. All curriculum, they insist, is set by state standards and by the local district, and therefore parents may still opt their children out.

The proposed Standards of Effective Practice, PELSB says, simply “represent the foundational knowledge and skills teachers must embody in order to effectively teach all of Minnesota’s students.” In other words, all classes and activities must be viewed through the prism of Critical Race Theory. What teachers “must embody” makes an end run around existing state standards and locally adopted curriculum.

The Standards of Effective Practice dictate not only what teachers must “understand,” but also what they must “implement,” “incorporate,” “help students develop,” “modify instruction,” “use strategies and resources,” “fosters an environment that ensures student identities,” “supports,” “plans how to achieve each student’s learning goals by choosing anti-racist,” “features, highlights, and uses resources,” “creates opportunities for students to learn about power, privilege, intersectionality, and systemic oppression,” “explores their own intersecting social identities,” “utilizes tools to mitigate their own behavior to disrupt oppressive systems,” “recognizes the responsibility to question normative school knowledge,” and so on. The Standards of Effective Practice amount to a de facto curriculum, regardless of what PELSB chooses to call them.

Forcing ideology into the classroom
PELSB makes the Clintonesque statement that, “The Standards of Effective Practice are not standards for preK-12 learners and are not required learning for children in any public or nonpublic school.” In other words, PELSB says that the Standards of Effective Practice don’t require learners to learn them. However, it doesn’t escape us that they require teachers to teach them!

Nonpublic schools
Commenters objected that the politicized and ideological Standards of Effective Practice would apply to licensed teachers in nonpublic schools. PELSB calls this objection a “misconception,” because teacher licensing for private schools is optional! In other words, yes, if private schools intend to hire licensed teachers, they must hire teachers who have been trained in and have adopted the radical, anti-Christian standards. [What Are CRT & Cultural Marxism?]

Teacher licensing renewals
PELSB insists that the revised Standards of Effective Practice do not apply to teachers renewing their licenses but only to candidates for initial licensure programs and existing teachers seeking an initial Tier 3 license through the licensure via portfolio process (i.e., adult learners).

But what PELSB does not tell us is that their limits to new teacher candidates ignores the rules and statutes that tie renewals for all four tiers to state statutes (122A.40, subdivision 8, or 122A.41, subdivision 5). These statutes require teacher licensing renewals to be aligned with “the professional teaching standards established in rule.” Those standards are what are being rewritten.

Current teachers are understandably relieved. PELSB avoids conflict with an entire army of teachers unwilling to abruptly hand over their civil rights. But what PELSB chooses to ignore at first can be taken up at any time, and who will stop them?

For now, PELSB is counting on getting it past the public, creating a gate-keeping system that blocks entry to any teacher candidates who will not comply with the Marxist narratives. It is a takeover of education and infiltration of our other major institutions.

These proposed requirements for teacher certification reveal many of the strategies cultural Marxists use to deconstruct traditional history, morals, values, and institutions and replace them with the building blocks of neo-Marxism. This is well-organized and more advanced than most people realize. Notably, PELSB stated (SONAR, p. 22) that for many institutions of higher learning, “the new standards are already embedded into their programs.”

This is not a one-shot engagement. All of us need to be in it for the long haul. Our children, our future, depend on it.

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